Tags aren't just for topics: my favourite tags

I mostly use Capacities tags to signal what topics are discussed in a block or note, so I can find and review them alongside similar content. But I also use a range of tags that aren’t about topics. Instead, they gather things under fun or reflective headings.

Revisiting these tags is a joyful way to resurface forgotten content and to prompt new insights or reflection. I'll briefly introduce these tags today.

Interesting

Maybe it's just me, but I will often say out loud "oh, that's interesting!" either when reading or talking to a person. Pretty much everything interests me, but this tag is for the things that really make me pause. Often it's interesting phrasing, or a point I'd have never put together.

I use my 'interesting' tag to indicate when these moments happen. It doesn't require any further action, I just like to showcase these things and a simple tag can do that. I find it really fun to scroll through this.

Here are a few examples…

System thoughts

Systems evolve all the time. Even though I've been using capacities since 2022 and I am on the team behind the app, I still learn new things about it every week, and make little tweaks as needed! I like to capture such thoughts or changes with this tag.

I don’t really do anything with it day to day, but it helps me review systems changes I’ve made and leave notes to future me.

I had this most recently with my ‘Year’ object type, whose structure I planned out before we had variable queries. This helped me work out how I wanted to use variable queries when we released them! You can read about how I’m using them here.

My Life Philosophy

A huge part of why I use a note-taking app is to take information from the outside world and work out my opinions on it. It helps craft my values, the mental models I use every day and how I want to approach the world.

'My Life Philosophy' is the tag where I bring all this together. I write more about this here.

Hall of fame

Simply, this is when I want to sit back and clap at my screen for what I have just seen. This is possibly my favourite tag ever, and it’s one of my oldest tags too. My normal rating system is 1-5 stars, but Hall of Fame is for the ultimate favourites. Reviewing this is a fun activity and it always leaves me feeling super happy and grateful.

Essence

You know when you hear a song and it takes you back to a different time? Or how Tiger King and Tiktok dances ~feels~ like the beginning of 2020? I am fascinated by such feelings and memories, and therefore want to help future me by collecting them. So I collect clues of the time we are living in, imagining that one day I’ll see it again and think something like “yes that was 2022 in a nutshell”

I call this practice of collection “capturing the essence of the everyday”, which over time was shortened to “essence”. It was inspired by The Years by Annie Ernaux which I’ve written about previously.

I’ve been doing this longer than I’ve used Capacities, so I have a variety of practices around it, but in Capacities I simply have a tag that collects everything. I scan through it often, and enjoy the journeys it takes me on.

Conclusion

So that’s a quick look at my tags. I love their ability to bring similar content together and to give me fun ways to review it. I think it’s really important to enjoy your systems, and these tags are certainly pillars of joy in mine.